Ya....someone doesn't like what you have to say, or has a different opinion, instead of telling them about it, all they have to do is click a button. Way to Go......bringing us to the level of Instant Messaging.

Please, PM me if you feel I "made you feel bad" or "you can't stand the way I showed you facts to counter your opinion based logic".

Their board, their rules. I've argued that for a while. But is it what I would consider to be a great system, especially given the nature of this board? Not really. I think there are far better ways of keeping members in check than by displaying a "reputation" based on the opinions of 66 people, when the idea of a reputation usually means that it comes from ALL people, not just the few most talkative.

And it certainly doesn't allow for justification. For instance, I don't recall having done anything intentionally provocative or against the rules since I signed up on this board, and if anything, I've defended the staff here against those who believe that legal free speech really applies fully on this board. So I would have to imagine that my "negative reputation" as dictated by the score comes from some people who were unhappy with a position I took in a discussion rather than based upon an actual respect level amongst my peers.

In essence, all I see this system doing is scaring people into not even daring to disagree with those above 500 posts. For those who aren't intimidated by threat of "negative reputation", I would imagine that it would only serve to ostracize these members unfairly when a new member comes to the board. Instead of listening to the advice of the member and taking it based upon the advice alone, the member might see the negative reputation and believe it actually represents the views of the community rather than those who were able to tough out the attitude on this board all the way to 500 posts.

Well, that experiment failed miserably. I'm rather disappointed at the conspiracy theory posts from some people. I was going to give it a few days, lower the limit to 200 posts and reset all of the stats to 0/0 after people stopped playing around, but I see that people just want to complain. Ah, "whatevah".